Got a sweet retro caravan in Portmagee with a lad named Tinny. Just not really eating.
Because of Marion, I ask.
Fuck no. I couldn’t give a shit what she does. I’m so busy, business is out the door. I have a boat tour business now, you hear about that, he asks. I nod. Yeah out on the sea by day, doing music by night, it’s nonstop. Anyway, I hope they’re stuck together forever, those two. No vision, not like you and me. You and me always had dreams.
Did I, I ask.
I never thought of myself as a dreamer. I’m pragmatic. Practical.
You always wanted to be a garda, he says. Always. From the second I met you.
I never considered it a dream. I never thought of stuff in wispy ways like that. It was a job I really wanted. And Marion always wanted to have a hair salon, why is her dream any less than mine.
Instead I just say, I didn’t get in.
You moved to Dublin, didn’t you, he says. You’re doing stuff. Not driving your da’s taxi or playing hair salon in your ma and da’s house. You and I are doing our own thing, paving our own way. Next generation of this island, making a name for ourselves.
I don’t know. I look out the window and watch the mountains racing by. He drives even faster than Pops. It’s making me feel sick.
Who’s Tinny, I ask.
A lad from Cahirciveen. Broke up with his wife, has tinnitus in his ear. He’s grand, we’re never home at the same time. Just as well, there’s only the one bed. So did you do what you went to Dublin to do, he asks, passing the smoke to me.
No. Not yet.
The syndicate rooms are heaving on the bank holiday Sunday. Cyclops’ set begins at 11 p.m. and I watch him set up, avail himself of the free drinks he’s given by the staff that he doesn’t drink and instead passes to me. He impresses me with his sobriety, he really is taking this seriously, but then I figure out he’s on other stuff. He starts off with fun Nineties dance music, then it gets hardcore. Strobe lights and smoke, sweat and drunken girls in short skirts and enormous heels falling all over the equipment to get to him and request Beyoncé, which he doesn’t play. It’s fun to watch. My head is spinning, I get up to dance a few times, feeling happy and free, dancing with total strangers, girls who become my best buds for the length of a song. Cyclops passes me a pill at one stage and I don’t know what the hell it is but I take it. I suddenly go from my happy alcoholic high to feeling woozy and lethargic. The ground moves beneath me and I need to get out of there. I tear myself away from the DJ box, down a pint of water then go outside and stand by the bouncers.
Okay love, one asks and I nod, feeling safe beside him, while breathing in fresh cold air along with his overbearing aftershave. I feel like I could sleep right here, right now.
Last orders at 2 a.m. Music stops at 2.30 and I rest my head against the DJ box while Cyclops packs up his gear. I can feel people laughing at me as they tidy up around me, but I don’t care, I can’t keep my eyes open.
Come on, Freckles, Cyclops finally says, let’s get you home.
I allow him to pull me up and open my eyes. When I do, he’s staring right at me, intensely, nose to nose. Uh oh.
Feels good, doesn’t it, he says, the buzz.
What the hell did you give me.
I call it Jetlag. Developed it with some lads.
You made this. Jesus, Cyclops, you could go to prison forever. What the hell is in it.
Ssh, I won’t tell. Cool though, isn’t it.
I preferred being drunk, I feel like I’m going to fall asleep.
But isn’t that the best feeling, right before you go asleep, all woozy and sleepy and cosy. He shimmies his body beside me. I don’t like how he feels against me. Sharp corners, a bag of bones. Wrong.
When I’m in bed, yeah, not when I’m out.
So let’s go to bed. They’ve rooms here. His hands are tight around my waist.
No, no, no, I back away, loosening his grip. Not a good idea.
Why not, he says. Jamie and Marion are probably pounding away at each other now, laughing at us.
He said that to hurt me, to make me feel vengeful. I may feel like I just got off a flight to Australia and left my soul at the stop-off in Singapore, but I know what he’s doing. You just want to get back at them, Cyclops, I say.
So, don’t you, he asks. Isn’t that why you called me.
No. I called you because you’re my friend.
He laughs. Freckles, I haven’t heard from you since you left.
I don’t recall you ringing me either.
Because we’re not friends, he says playfully, prodding me in the side with his finger to emphasise each point.